The state of the art in blueberry sorting is best evidenced by the disclosure in U.S. Pat. No. 3,773,172 to William Fred McClure et al. In that disclosure a synchronous blueberry sorter is shown. By synchronous one means that the sorter positively singulates and then advances each singulated blueberry to a read station in a definite time relationship. In the McClure et al sorter, cups are utilized to pick-up individual blueberries and the cups are carried by a conveyor means which advances them to a read station where a fiber optical type maturity sensing device is utilized to determine a differential optical density and hence the maturity of each respective blueberry. While the McClure et al synchronous blueberry sorter represented a very significant step in the art, it is evident that the limitations due to the synchronous nature of the sorter significantly limits the capacity and efficiency of the sorter. In particular, the fact that the conveyor itself has to be driven at a relatively slow speed that enables the blueberries to be picked up by the respective cups inherently limits the speed of the conveyor and cups, and consequently the capacity of the sorter. In addition, the cup design limits the density of the blueberries being fed to the read station because the blueberries can only be advanced to the read station by the cups themselves. The importance of high capacity and efficiency cannot, as a practical matter, be overemphasized because commercially available blueberry harvesters and associated packaging and processing equipment have relatively large capacities and it is desirable for the capacity of the sorter to be comparable.